Essence Fest vet and Lil Wayne collaborator Robin Thicke returns to New Orleans with love and more

Matthew Hinton / The Times-PicayuneRobin Thicke on stage during the 2009 Essence Music Festival in the Superdome.Robin Thicke is one of only three white bandleaders — after Kenny G and Teena Marie — to appear on the main stage of the Essence Music Festival. In the Superdome last July, he lofted a honey falsetto nearly as sweet as Maxwell’s and rapped Lil Wayne’s “A Milli.”

The notoriously hard-to-please Essence audience ate it up, a phenomenon not lost on the night’s master of ceremonies, comedian Jonathan Slocumb.

“See what happens when you get a black woman?” Slocumb cracked, a reference to Thicke’s African-American wife, actress Paula Patton.

His marriage aside, the son of 1980s sitcom star and late-night TV host Alan Thicke understands that performers must earn an audience’s love — especially at Essence.

“I walk out there not expecting anything,” Thicke said recently, calling from a tour stop in North Carolina. “I go out there to earn it every single night.

“And Essence will chew you up and spit you out if you don’t bring it. They’ll just fold their arms and look off. You can hear your hair move it’s so quiet.”

His dedication to showmanship goes well beyond monogramming his horn section’s music stands.

“Even if you have really good songs and a talented voice, knowing how to pace a show and shorten and elongate songs ... that’s how you put on a real show. Not everybody has that gift. Sometimes artists go out there and can be a little selfish and self-indulgent.

“My father, being a TV producer ... maybe it’s in my genetics to focus on a full show more than just making them love me. I don’t spend a lot of time talking; I try to make sure there’s no dead air. I try to make sure the show keeps rolling.”

Thicke returns to New Orleans to headline the House of Blues on Wednesday, March 31, on a night off from his ongoing tour with Alicia Keys.

He credits his contemporary R&B sensibility to his racially diverse Los Angeles high school, where he rocked R. Kelly’s “Your Body’s Calling Me” at a talent show.

His professional credentials are solid. As a producer, songwriter and singer, he has contributed to more than 40 gold or platinum albums by the likes of Michael Jackson, Christina Aguilera, Usher, Marc Anthony, Jennifer Hudson and Lil Wayne. In addition to Keys, he’s toured with Hudson, John Legend and Beyonce, with whom he shared a bill at the 2007 Essence.

He launched his own recording career with 2003’s eclectic “A Beautiful World.” He’s described it as his homage to “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”; the follow-up, “The Evolution of Robin Thicke,” as his “heartfelt and spiritual” album; and 2008’s “Something Else” as his tribute to 1970s music.

Last year’s “Sex Therapy: The Session” is his R. Kelly album, a collection of come-ons and lost nights filled with romance, recklessness and reconciliation. Guests included Snoop Dogg, the Game, Kid Cudi and hip-hop mogul Jay-Z.

So how does one prepare to record with Jay-Z?

“I had an environment that he would be comfortable in and feel taken care of,” Thicke said. “I made sure we had his Ace of Spades champagne. I made sure that I didn’t take too many cigarette breaks so I could be right there to soak it all up.

“When guys like Jay and Lil Wayne get the idea, it happens real fast. When they get that lightning bolt, you want to record it and get it down. You want to make sure the engineer is in his seat and the microphone is working. You don’t want to miss a moment of their creativity.”

Matthew Hinton / The Times-PicayuneRobin Thicke, second from left, and his band work the stage of the 2009 Essence Fest. "I go out there to earn it every single night," he says of performing.Thicke and the currently locked-down Lil Wayne have enjoyed a mutually beneficial creative partnership. As Thicke tells it, Weezy loved “A Beautiful World” because “I took a lot of musical liberties. He was attracted to that because he’s a true artist.”

For his part, Thicke was an “enormous” fan of Wayne’s “Go DJ,” from 2004’s “Tha Carter.”

“I thought that was a revolutionary cut. The way that he was rapping, I thought, ‘This guy is the next greatest thing, period. He’s going to be the biggest star in rap music.’ I told everybody.”

So when Wayne called to ask permission to sample “Oh Shooter,” a track from “A Beautiful World,” the response was, “You can do whatever you want with it.”

Wayne’s rethinking, titled “Shooter,” wound up on his 2005 album “Tha Carter II”; Thicke also included it on his own “The Evolution of Robin Thicke.”

In the fall of 2005, Wayne visited Thicke’s studio to record another song for that album, “All Night Long.” While there, he heard “Tie My Hands,” a brand new song Thicke wrote in response to Hurricane Katrina. “I was devastated by what had happened, and I felt helpless, like my hands were tied, that I couldn’t do anything to help people.”

That night at his studio, Thicke gave Wayne a copy of “Tie My Hands.” Nearly three years later, Wayne included the song on “Tha Carter III,” the best-selling album of 2008.

Thicke and Wayne also joined forces for their first appearances on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” and the Grammy Awards telecast. Together, they performed “Shooter” on the former and “Tie My Hands” on the latter.

“He was too underground and dangerous for ‘The Tonight Show,’ so they wouldn’t let him come on alone, and I hadn’t sold enough records, so they wouldn’t let me come on yet,” Thicke said. “But together, we were palatable.”

Lil Wayne isn’t Thicke’s only Crescent City connection. His wife co-starred with Denzel Washington in “Déjà Vu,” the first movie to shoot in New Orleans after Katrina. Thicke spent several weeks in town during filming.

“New Orleans became a new home to us. You can feel the history, the ghosts, the wars, the slavery. You can feel the heat from the passion and the anger and the mixed culture and races.

“It has this strength and everlasting heart, but it also has a lot of painful, powerful history. All of it comes together for the bittersweet irony that is America. It’s represented in New Orleans more than almost any other city.”

After Thicke’s current tour wraps, he plans to stick close to home: He and Patton are expecting their first child, a boy, in May.

“It’s the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to me, and also scary. I’m so scared of being a failure or not being good enough or being a bad dad. I want to make him proud of me. I want to make sure he isn’t embarrassed by me. He makes me want to step up my game.”

What if his kids refuse to listen to his albums?

“As long as I have rappers on them, I think my kids will still be into it. But at some point, they’ll be like, ‘Dad, you look stupid standing next to Young Jeezy.’”

He’s already writing the follow-up to “Sex Therapy.” “Right now, with the baby on the way, I’m feeling larger themes of spirituality, family, real love, endless love. The songs are deeper and more meaningful than some of the ‘Sex Therapy’ stuff. As a creative person, you have to follow the ebb and flow of life.”